Good Things Come To Those Who Date

Steve and Mary.

Alex and Fran.

Dylan and…oh, wait…I’ve got no one.

And that’s fine by me, but Steve and Alex had been giggling to each other all day. Sometimes they’d snigger behind their hands like school children and look away. Then other times they’d wait for me to look at them and then laugh. Maybe it was because they had girlfriends, or a fiancé in Alex’ case. I’ve not had a girlfriend since college. And even then I wasn’t really happy with her. I was terrified of Mandy. And I know what you’re thinking; girls that age don’t really know what they want and they tend to confuse and scare boys. But no, she wasn’t like that. She was a rugby player. A big, beefy rugby player. So when she hugged me, I couldn’t enjoy it, as I was concentrating on keeping my ribcage in tact.

I walked down from the store after my break to find Steve and Alex, huddled around the trolley bay and giggling. It was no surprise. They were giggling when they watched me walk up for my break and even during, staring up at me in the canteen, pointing and chuckling to each other. Enough was enough.

‘All right, guys. What’s up?’

‘What?’ Steve held out his arms.

‘Yeah, what?’ Alex joined.

‘You’ve been like this all day. Now unless there’s a new XBOX game out, there isn’t much for you to be excited about.’

‘OK, OK shall we tell him, Al?’ Steve said.

‘Tell me what?’ I asked.

‘You’re going out tomorrow night!’

‘What?’

‘We’ve set up a blind date for you!’ Alex held out his arms.

‘What!’

‘Yeah!’

Alex and Steve jumped up and down a bit, like a new XBOX game had just been released.

‘I’m not…Am I?’ Holding my head back.

‘Yeah, it’s all set up. You’re meeting at Leo’s at eight.’

At first I was a little offended. Then I was nervous. Then I made up that Alex and Steve had gone to the trouble of setting up a date. Then I felt all three emotions at once, making me go red with anger and excitement. People like me don't normally do blind dates. It's normally people in their 30's with a successful career and just been through a lengthy divorce. You know the story: female friend sets up a date for this guy who has the the looks but lacks the confidence. Probably played by Hugh Grant or some other charming, bumbling idiot. You've seen those films.

‘What? You’ve not? Really?’

‘Yeah, she’s called Sofia. She’s a friend of Fran’s.’ Alex smiled.

‘I’m not going.’ I chuckled nervously.

‘What? Why not?’

‘Is she nice?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, of course! She’s just finished a degree in Drama.’

‘Drama queen!’ Steve beamed.

‘She’s around your age. You’ll be perfect together!’

I wanted to thank them. Then I wanted to hug them. Then I wanted to smack them both in the face for doing it. It’s hard to deal with more than one feeling at once. It’s tiring, too. So I just smiled and shrugged, safe in the knowledge that tomorrow night I’d be on my very first blind date.

‘Why have you done this?’ I asked.

‘Well, I’m with Mary now. Alex has got Fran. We just think you need a bit of it.’

‘A bit of what?’

‘Action.’

I’ve not had a girlfriend for five years. I don’t want a bit of action. A bit of action wouldn’t go far. I wanted a lot of it. But it still didn’t feel right going on a blind date, I can only see it going downhill. Mind you, it went down hill with Mandy. She hugged me after winning a rugby tournament and I couldn’t move for two weeks. So, I decided to go along with it.

Leo’s is an Italian restaurant; about ten minutes walk from the supermarket. It had been many things before Leo’s. Every six months it seemed to change into something else. First it was a sports bar, then it was an All You Can Eat Chinese restaurant. And I don’t know this for sure, but my mate told me it used to be a brothel. So the thought of eating in that place wasn’t nice. It had been Leo’s for over a year now. We had our Christmas meal there last year, but we can’t go back this year. We got barred for ‘excessive offensive language.’ I knew it was a mistake to invite Archie, one of our night staff.  A bloke with tourette’s syndrome a quiet family owned restaurant don’t mix.

It took me an hour and a half to get ready. I put on my favourite shiny blue shirt and nice aftershave, black shoes and my best jeans. I arrived a little later than Steve and Alex planned, so that way I wouldn’t be the desperate, lonely bloke sitting in the corner. I’d be the desperate, lonely bloke standing outside, peering through the glass trying to find someone who looked like a Sofia. I stepped inside about quarter past eight and was greeted was a large man in a crisply ironed white shirt.

‘Erm, I’m meeting someone here.’ I said, looking around the room.

‘A blind date, ah?’

The guy spoke like those puppets off the Dolmio adverts. Or the pizza delivery man in The Simpsons, whichever one you know of. I presumed he was the Leo.

‘Yes.’ I blushed.

‘I think she’s over there. Table nine.’

I walked over to table nine where Sofia was sat patiently. She was a small, slim girl, around my age as Alex said. She was wearing a dark shirt that matched her dark skin, with a bright silver necklace around her neck. She smiled at me politely as I sat down. Thankfully, there were no inevitable ‘Sofia?’ or ‘Dylan?’ greetings at the beginning. We just seemed to recognise each other as our respective dates straightaway and the date started.

‘So, Alex tells me you’ve got a Degree in Drama.’

‘Performing Arts.’ Sofia corrected me.

Sofia spoke in a gentle, rather posh and over pronounced accent, and her face seemed to form a soft pout every couple of seconds.

‘I’ve just done Biomedical Sciences so yours is bound to have been far more interesting.’ 

‘Yes.’ She nodded with a smile.

I’ll be honest, that was supposed to be rhetorical. She didn’t have to agree with me.

‘How do you know Fran, then?’

‘We were at college together. She started working at the supermarket afterwards and I battled on at University.’

I’m not sure how much battling goes on in a Performing Arts course, but I didn’t question her about it.

‘So what do you want to be?’ I asked.

‘I'm sorry?’

Sofia tilted her head as she spoke, and looked at me as if I’d spoken a different language.

‘You know, what do you want to be? An actor…’

‘Actress…’

‘Dancer?’

‘An actress.’ She stared at me.

‘OK.’ I said, reaching for the menu.

'And it's not something I want to be. It's something I am.'

It didn’t start well. I’d only just taken my coat off and she was making out as if I was questioning her whole career.

‘I've been to a few showbiz do’s this year. You know, for contacts? A friend of mine knows someone at ITV.’

‘Right…’ I nodded, with one eye on the starters.

‘Everyone was at the last one. John off Big Brother, Gary Lineker…the man who reads out the lottery numbers…’

‘Wow…’

That could have sounded sarcastic, but I was genuinely interested. I’ve always wanted to meet that lottery narrator man, just to ask him questions like ‘Have you ever put any numbers on yourself?’ Imagine if he won! He wouldn’t come back the next week.

‘But it’s so hard getting into the industry.’ Sofia rolled her eyes.

‘I imagine.’

‘Especially when you’re Asian.’

‘Right…why?’

She looked at me like I’d just killed her cat.

‘Dylan, most Asian families disapprove of their children in the arts. They look upon it as a joke.’ She pouted again. ‘They see it as a disgrace to the family and don’t consider it a priority. Definitely not as a job.’
‘I see. It’s a bit like Billy Elliot.’

Now she looked at me like I’d just put her cat, brother and favourite actress into a house and burnt it to the ground. Her pout dissolved into an open mouthed stare, dropping her menu simultaneously.

‘Do you know how rude that is, Dylan?’

‘I’m sorry. Haven’t you seen Billy Elliot?’ 

And with that, she made a little ‘psst’ noise through her lips, grabbed her handbag and left. 

Thinking back I suppose it was a bit rude, but I was trying to sympathise with her. Billy was told her couldn’t dance and he did, and the film ended well. It even won an award if I remember rightly! Sofia should have thanked me for giving her good advice. There was no point comically asking for the bill because we hadn’t ordered anything, the date only lasted three and a half minutes. The next day Steve and Alex were asking about it.

‘It didn’t go that well.’ I sighed.

‘Did you get her number?’ Steve asked.

‘Nope.’

‘A kiss?’

‘No.’

‘Not even her e-mail address?’

‘She left before we got a chance to order.’

‘What did you do?’

‘She thought I disrespected her Performing Arts degree.’

‘Why did you do that? She worked hard for that. Do you know what that dancing does to your feet?’ Alex defended her.

‘I didn't mean to. She was just going on about how her family disagrees with what she does and they don’t consider it a real thing.’

‘Awww...like Billy Elliot.’ Steve said.

‘Yes! See! That’s what I said!’

‘The dancing lad?’ Alex asked. ‘You do know Sofia is Asian, don’t you?’

‘Yes! And what’s with all the pouting she does?’

‘Oh, she does that. Fran got annoyed with it, too.’

‘Dylan, that’s racist.’ Steve warned me.

‘It’s not racist. It’s poutist. Besides, she hated me more than I hated her!’

If there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s ‘Don’t Try To Date Struggling Performing Arts Graduates.’ If you do, try not to compare them to a fictional dancing boy from Newcastle.